Belissa Andía Pérez

Belissa Andía Pérez (born 7 July 1953, Atico) is a Peruvian activist and essayist. She is the "trans secretariat" of Instituto Runa de Desarrollo y Estudios sobre Género. She is also a member of the Junta and the secretary in the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, a Latin American organization that represents the interests of transsexuals. She is also a founding council member of the Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation. Andía Pérez is known for her fieldwork with transgender sex worker communities, which she uses to push for legal protections against transphobic state violence.

Biography Andía Pérez was born in Arequipa, Peru. She went to elementary school at San Antonio de Padua and secondary school at Bartolomé Herrera, where she served as a representative for the state school unit in plenary dialogue sessions. When she was a teenager, she came out to her family as a trans woman. She notes this was at a time when being queerness was very taboo and the transgender community lacked visibility, even within leftist spaces.

Andía Pérez attended the National University of San Marcos in pursuit of a degree focused on genetics, during which she became involved with Catholic organizations practicing liberation theology. She left these Christian groups later, due to ideological contradictions. By the next year, the group decided there needed to be a transgender official, leading to Andía Pérez's election at the 2005 Latin American Regional Conference.

Andía Pérez is also a secretary at the Runa Institute for Development and Gender Studies. Her work focuses on human rights, especially for transgender people, focusing on at-risk travesti communities. In June 2014, Andía Pérez spoke as a representative of Instituto Runa before the 26th Human Rights Council at the United Nations, participating on a panel on human rights of intersex people.

In 2006, Andía Pérez ran for the Congress of the Republic of Peru with the New Left Movement. She was not elected, but made history as the first transgender candidate in Peru's general elections. She has noted that she faced sexualization and transphobic harassment from the press during her campaign.

Andía Pérez starred in the 2011 film Loxoro, portraying a travesti mother searching for her missing daughter. In addition, she served an as uncredited screenwriter, rewriting the original script to orient the film towards the struggles of the travesti community and avoiding depicting transphobic stereotypes. Andía Pérez's involvement in the film is considered by some a crucial part of her transfeminist activism.

Andía Pérez's involvement in leftist organizations has led her to be sourced in investigations into the treatment of LGBTQ+ workers in laboral sectors. With this, Andía Pérez has advocated for greater inclusion of transgender individuals within labor unions and general labor organizing.

Contributions to Feminist Theory Andía Pérez speaks on the discrimination transgender people experience, appearing on Peruvian television and radio to denounce state violence.

Filmography

Loxoro (2011)